Daily NFT News & Drops for July 22 | Lucky Trader

Lucky Trader covers the latest NFT news for Friday, July 22. Top stories include disappointment from the RTFKT and Moonbirds teams, a big day for new mints, and excitement for Mystics building.

Top NFT Projects to Watch Today, July 22

It has been a disappointing week in the NFT market, with prices falling as ETH has been surging ($1626 at time of writing, up 36% on the week) and some major drops and announcements this week letting down (Moonbirds, RTFKT). Just 5 of the top 25 NFT projects by floor price are in green on the 7-day view, with most down in the 5-20 percent range in a heavily red week.

With a relatively open weekend in front of us without much-expected news, any new team or drop that can capture market attention will have room to run. Which is great news for the new projects dropping today and tomorrow. 

Let's get into it.

Top NFT Mints and Reveals Today, July 22

Here are the two primary drops on the radar for today and tomorrow:

Drops:

• Citizens of Tajigen
• Art Blocks Factory: "Metropixeland"
• Purrnelope's Exclusives
• Mystics (tomorrow)

Citizens of Tajigen

The new "global underground network of thinkers, builders, and change-makers at the forefront of web3 and DeFi" launches today with Citizens of Tajigen. This futuristic anime-style avatar project is set in the year 2025 in a world where governments have outlawed crypto, the population is micro-chipped and non-compliant citizens are targets for arrest.

Similar to the Azuki format, the project page has a "Concept Map" vs a roadmap, with pillars of operating principles, community, digital identity, interoperable ecosystem, and metaverse x realverse.

The mint starts today with a three-phase mechanic, starting with their whitelist sale at noon ET, waitlist at 4:00 p.m. ET and then public happening after for the remaining supply. The 7,777 NFTs will be priced at 0.08 ETH, a "mid-range" price for recently paid mints between 0.05 on the low end (Etherjump) and 0.15-0.25 on the higher end (Isekai). 

This market seems to be gravitating back to paid mints, and with 143k followers on Twitter and a relatively low entry, this one definitely has a shot to mint out. There doesn't seem to be anything groundbreaking or new with this avatar set, so longer-term expectations are low right now, but with sub-10K supply and a quiet-ish weekend, this one could run for a bit.

Art Blocks Factory: "Squares"

Generative artist Fernando Jerez is back today on Art Blocks for his second Factory drop, "Metropixeland". With the tagline "A nice place to live if you are made of pixels", this animated, pixelated set of metropolis images will have some mainstream appeal today with its "relaxing experience with nostalgic vibes". There's definitely an allusion to legos or other childhood building toys in the imagery which shine through quickly at first glance of the outputs.

The artist's first project "Stations" was able to mint out 900 NFTs with a February 2022 release date, certainly an accomplishment, but has traded just 26 ETH lifetime and holds a 0.085 ETH floor.

This drop is just a 450 supply, so definitely a nicer supply but still relatively higher than some recent releases in the 200 range. With the last two Art Blocks projects struggling on the secondary after minting out too high, expect more caution on today's mint, likely to mint out near min at 0.1 ETH. Minting above that level will be risky, given the lack of liquidity this week in Art Blocks overall and the price action on the artist's prior set. But the wildcard is the art appeal, and if collectors really gravitate to this one early, it will have some upside.

Metropixeland mints today at noon ET in a Dutch auction, starting at 2 ETH and exponentially decreasing to 0.1 ETH. Find out more on the project's site.

Purrnelope's Exclusives

This team with a cult following is looking to move into the P2E space with the launch of Purrnelope's Exclusives, though with a twist. Instead of "play to earn", the principle here will be "be good and earn" as they prioritize fun gaming ahead of tokenomics. 

A key component of the launch with be $TOKEN, which will be gained via building, questing and gaming, and the rarest NFTs will yield more tokens than others. The risk to be aware of though is that this appears to be built within NFTWorlds, which suffered greatly this week with the announcement that Minecraft will not allow NFTs and sending that ecosystem down 60%+.

Today's mint will be conducted in 3 waves, starting with an allowlist at 5:30 p.m. ET, a secondary allows list window following, and then a public sale at 7:30 p.m. ET. The mint price is at 0.1 ETH, relatively steep considering the Purrnelope's genesis floor is at 0.2 ETH. Combined with the Minecraft news, this one is likely to face some challenges in minting today. But given their cult community and following, certainly, one to watch today.

Mystics (Tomorrow)

This new "magical" collection of cc0 animated NFTs drops tomorrow as Mystics releases their set of 5,000 NFTs. The project's Twitter states that their work is inspired by Motion Markus from Invisible Friends, and the similarities can be seen right away in the art and animation style. In fact, this seems like an Invisible Friends expansion or derivative in a lot of ways.

The project's magic map furthers the similarities to Invisible Friends and the RCC group, outlining plans for a three-part ecosystem starting with Mystics, then Web3 Skate Crew in Q3, and Arcade in Q4. The founder's vision is centralized on The Pier, where "we are executing a range of elite art & gaming project concepts, all built on the foundation of Web3 innovation."

NFT owners are promised access to future drops as primary utility, similar to how the RCC group has executed. So Mystics should be viewed as the genesis project in a growing ecosystem, and with a relatively attractive entry price of 0.059-0.069, this one will gain some serious attention tomorrow at launch. With a relatively quiet weekend on deck, this project has a real shot to dominate attention and should have some upside potential.

The presale starts at 11:00 a.m. ET with the public at 5:00 p.m. ET.

NFT News and Announcements

Thursday was a relatively busy day in the NFT market, with the major milestone of the Silver Nest for Moonbirds unlocking and then RTFKT x Nike dropping their genesis AR hoodie NFTs. And sadly both were pretty disappointing.

Starting with the RTFKT launch, several holders were angry or frustrated as the much-anticipated launch was delayed 50 minutes and then the website did not work, not showing users NFTs and thus not allowing minting. Ultimately the community figured out how to mint through the contract, and the 8,888 AR Hoodie NFTs were finally minted out within about 30-45 minutes, leaving some holders who didn't figure that out empty-handed (the NFT holds a 0.35 ETH floor at the time of writing).

Overall, several founders and the project took to Twitter to apologize, providing some consolation. Certainly, this was a poor minting experience for such a major team, and it will be interesting to see if the founders do more than apologize in the near future to make up for this guff. The market has already responded, as CloneX is down 6% on the day to 9.4 ETH.

Kevin Rose and the Moonbirds team also left the market somewhat underwhelmed with their silver nest release, which contained Moonbirds Socks, Fanny punk, and two enamel pins. What was not included was any new NFTs (i.e. Ravens), which many holders were expecting and thus were left disappointed. This was furthered by the team's Twitter spaces yesterday afternoon, which confirmed no new NFTs dropping soon and that holders need to wait another month for more information.

The market did not take this well, with Moonbirds dropping 14 percent on the day to 21.95 ETH floor. This is on the back of a very bearish Oddities reveal event, which saw that NFT set to drop from a 3-3.2 ETH floor to 1.7 ETH on the first day of secondary trading amidst overall dislike for the art style of the set. Certainly Kevin Rose and the team are now facing a more uphill battle to deliver value to their very demanding holder base.

Here is a quick round-up of the rest of the main headlines from Thursday:

• AT&T announces its embracing of the digital future with a new educational event "Securing Your Digital Assets Today and Tomorrow" next Wednesday, July 27th
• Cool Cats released new details on their upcoming Fall Guys tournament starting next week with Epic Games, including prize details, participant info, and start times
• Coinbase added new features to its NFT marketplace, on the same day that they petitioned the SEC to begin rule-making on digital assets and securities
• Art Blocks announced its newest Curated drop for next Wednesday, titled "Alan Ki Aanhken" by Fahad Karim
• ENS announced a partnership with Huobi Global, one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world, with more info to come on the partnership
• Epic Games CEO stated that they would "definitely" not ban NFTs, in response to the major Minecraft announcement from earlier in the week
• Twitter user Keyboard Monkey was hacked Thursday, the latest in a string of NFT "influencer" hacks, and the latest reason for traders/minters to avoid all surprise links and mints
• Punks Comic "Apes Out on the Town" mint is now live for their newest edition comic NFT

NFT Market Action Data, July 22

Thursday was a volatile day in the NFT markets, with some major winners and losers on the day, along with a big splash from a new joiner.

Memeland's first highly anticipated drop in "The Potatoz" was released as a free mint, quickly running to 1 ETH before setting in the 0.55-0.65 ETH range for most of the day and taking a spot on the board with over 2K ETH volume.

The Yuga ecosystem mostly chopped on the day on lower volume, with BAYC/MAYC/Otherdeeds holding at 93.4, 16.89, and 2.44 ETH floors.

But the mid-tier PFPs did not hold up as well, with CloneX down 6% to 9.4 ETH, Azuki down 2 percent to 10 ETH, and Doodles down 3% to 10.95 ETH, as these three sets continue a slow march down this summer. Moonbirds had an even worse day, down 14 percent to 22 ETH.

There was some positive news on the day though, mostly for newer projects. Wednesday's paid mint Etherjump had a huge day, doing a full 100%+ jump to 0.18 ETH after being in the low single digits the night before. Nina's Super Cool World saw a huge surge as well, jumping 59 percent back to 0.66 ETH floor in the GODA's genesis project. NFT Worlds also rebounded 20% back to 1.4 ETH floor, in the wake of the Minecraft news.

RTFKT's Nike Dunk Cryptokicks dropped 25 percent to 0.96 ETH after the AR Hoodie sale, somewhat expected and back to where they traded pre-announcement. The AR Hoodie holds a 0.35 ETH floor this morning, up 75 percent from mint.

NFT Market Analysis

The crypto and equity markets are having a really strong week, with BTC up 14% on the week to $23,450 and ETH up a whopping 37% at $1628 at time of writing. The technical analysis folks seem to be raising their short-term targets, as calls are being made for BTC in the $28k range and ETH up to $2,000 potentially as this relief rally is set to continue into next week. The equity markets have had a strong week as well, ahead of some big earnings releases next week in the tech sector which will likely have an impact one way or another.

The NFT markets continue to be hampered by this ETH volatility in the near term and an overall lack of liquidity. As stated in the intro, just 5 of the top 25 projects by floor price are in green on the week. It's likely a combination of slow news, low liquidity, and a rapid rise in USD valuation on some major NFT sets with this ETH run (up 70% from the bottom) and some traders taking profits. This trend will likely continue until ETH stabilizes a bit and the "wealth effect" takes back over.

Another trend in the market is the end of free mint meta and paid mints returning (putting Memeland aside). The hype cycles on the free mints have gotten shorter and shorter over the past few weeks and the market appetite seems to be slim to none right now. But there is an appetite for real projects which have shown effort with low entry prices, evidenced by Etherjump's success this week coming from a 0.05 ETH mint. Citizens of Tajigen and Mystics tomorrow will put this trend to the test.

The generative art market seems to be in a lull, with low liquidity and poorly performing secondary action on recent mints, and today's drop is doubtful to buck the trend. But next week's Curated could be the spark needed to reignite this market.

Overall it's looking to be a quieter weekend in the NFT space - a great weekend to go outside and enjoy a summer weekend.

To those minting, good luck and stay safe out there, and as always make sure to stay up to date with the latest news with the Lucky Trader newsfeed.